Description of problem:
After upgrade of kernel 2.6.23.15-137 to 2.6.24.3-12 the network connection
became unstable.
I have two network cards on my mother board of my triple-boot system, one
network card is unplugged.
FC8 kernel 2.6.23.15-137, FC5 kernel 2.6.20-1.23.16 and Windows XP recognize the
plugged network card as "Marvell 88E8001, MAC 00:11:d8:82:a1:9a" and the
unplugged one as "nVidia Corporation CK804, MAC 00:11:d8:82:a6:36" by Fedora and
"NVIDIA nForce Networking Controlller" by Windows XP.
After upgrading FC8 kernel to 2.6.23.15-137, the plugged card became "nVidia
Corporation CK804, MAC 00:11:d8:82:a1:9a" Please note, the name had changed but
MAC address remains the same.
Since the name changed (MAC is the same) and connection became unstable, I
suspect that the kernel has associated drivers with wrong cards.
The unplugged card has also become the opposite with the old hardware address.
Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
kernel 2.6.23.15-137
How reproducible:
always

I made mistake in description the broken kernel is 2.6.24.3-12 (the latest on
automatic update now) and the one before upgrade 2.6.23.15-137 works fine.
I must be
Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
kernel 2.6.24.3-12
not the above, I am sorry about the mistake.

I found walk around that works for me now.
1. plugged both network cards.
2. unchecked "Bind to MAC address" for both cards, since the probed addresses
are wrong with the updated kernel (they switched between).
The network connection seems to be stable now. Although, on each reboot, it
creates me new third device "eth0.bak" in "Network Configuration" which is not
editable (I can only delete it but it appears again after reboot).
There is an obvious new bug in the updated kernel (2.6.24.3-12), because nothing
like this happens with previous kernels (like 2.6.23.15-137.fc8 and
2.6.20-1.2320.fc5) on the same computer.